of this are the politics of apresidentialelection. atthe end of the day, the balance of power remains almost exactly the same. does the fact the president won an election make his hand any stronger? does it make it the same? does the idea he's not running for office again improve his power or make him weaker? i don't really know the answer to that. i do remember president bush saying he had a mandate, and watching that mandate fizzle as he tried to do social security reform. i'm not sure there's been any progress at all as a result of this election, maria. i'm not hearing it yet in the rhetoric. >> you have to wonder what the quid pro quo is. if he's going to draw that line in the sand that he's going to veto any legislation on the upper end tax cut, there has to be some quid pro quo at some point. dan, what do you think happens? obviously wall street didn't like what it heard. >> clearly not. the reaction was probably more visceral than a lot of people anticipated, particularly as it rallied on election day and into the election, even though it was clear obama had the advantage. i think it's a lot

'm maria bartiromo today coming to you live in chicago. the post-election stock slide is continuing on wall street today. another day in the red as the traders digest the president's first news conference since the election. fiscal cliff negotiations going on right now in the white house. bill, good afternoon. >> hello. i'm bill griffeth here at new york stock exchange. we have huge news making interviews coming up. stay tuned for kkr's founder george roberts, the new best buy ceo in his first television interview since taking over that troubled company, and charles schwa b's ceo will be joining us as well. >> also, israel launches a massive military operation in response to hamas. >> gold also higher. one of those days where energy went higher and stocks went lower. we're setting lows right now. the dow down 126 points at the 12,629 level. the nasdaq and s&p are also moving lower. the nasdaq has moved into correction territory, down about 10% from its highs set earlier this year. the s&p is down sharply as well at this hour. so it was those fed minutes, the continued fears we may go over t

of this uncertainty has led to this sharp decline sincetheelection. s&pcapital iq says the market value of all companies on publicly traded exchanges of the major exchanges has dropped by $750 just since november 5th. brian singer, let me ask you about that. would you be poised to put money to work in this selloff, or do you want to get to the sidelines until the dust settles? >> generally speaking, i think the environment is one where you want to look for an opportunity to actually step in over the coming six weeks or so as we get to the end of the year. as we approach the fiscal cliff, our baseline assumption is that there will be resolution, we won't go off the fiscal cliff, but there will be tremendous volatility, and that should provide an opportunity to step in. >> keith, what do you think the message of the market is with the kind of trading pattern we're seeing and the big losses we've suffered since the election? what is this market telling you, and what are you doing about it right now? >> it's pretty clear, bill, that a lot of the hedge fund managers really believe that romney was g

offer. >>> welcome back. mitt romney may have lost thepresidentialelection, butsome democrats are warming to one of his key tax reform proposals. remember this? >> everybody gets -- i'll pick a number -- $25,000 in e ductided and credits. you can decide which ones to use. home mortgage interest deduction, childcare tax credit and so forth. you can use those in filling that bucket of deduction. >> robert frank looks at how a deduction bucket impact everything. >> the gop doesn't want to raise tax rates. many on both sides are now talking about cutting or limiting deductions to raise revenue. that would appease both parties. some argue that this would be a gift to the wealthy, but in fact, millionaires would bear the brunt of any cut in deductions. let's look at the tax policy center. if deduction were capped at $25,000, people making $1 million or more would see a tax increase of more than $97,000. this group would could for more than 45% of that tax change. people making more than $200,000 a year would account for more than 70% of that change. the middle class, well, they woul

points now, or about 3%, since tuesday, since the president's re-election. it's the worst two-day losing streak for the blue chip average in about a year. the s&p 500 and nasdaq are also down sharply the past two sessions. we want to show you where we stand right now, as a matter of fact. just off the lows of the session, down 61 points on the dow. we were down about 80 points at the low. now at 12,872. no bounce today so far. the nasdaq is down 27 points at 2909. the s&p 500 index at this hour also lower, down almost ten points. >> pretty broad based as well. what will it take to get the bulls in a buying mood once again over these fears over the fiscal cliff? does it derail any hopes of a sustained rally until next year? >> that's what we're going to talk about in today's "closing bell" exchange. joe, is this about the fiscal cliff? i mean, europe is still a worry as well, isn't it? >> it is. clearly -- and largely, it was retail sentiment from what we're seeing from the customers coming in that have sold for the last two days. institutions haven't exactly ran for the door just yet. yo

theelectionlastweek. the dow up just 12 points. again, very light volume. no bond trading today because of the veterans day holiday. not a lot of direction for the markets today. up a point and change for nasdaq. at 2906. apple and microsoft sort of impacting the market today. the s&p 500 is up 1 1/2 points at 1381. less than an hour to go, let's talk with stocks in the green. can we manage to kick off the week in a positive note after last week's big losses? uncertainty over the resolution of the fiscal cliff is going to see for the foreseeable future, until the end of the year, as investors weigh what to do about that. what is the investor to do now that the markets get out of the way? >> we have chris levy from blackrock, michael from penchant partners michael jaynes and bob pisani. let's talk about this end of year tax increase, which is likely for certainly the highest earners. michael, how do you want to be positioned? >> i think the dividend stocks clearly are the most at-risk for that. if you look at utilities today, they're among the worst performing and that's a high dividend-